IN HOC SIGNO VINCES

Thirty foreign Islamic State women, child arrested near Tal Afar

Baghdad – Several Islamic State members were arrested as security troops were combing the group’s recently lost bastion in Nineveh province.

In a statement on Friday, the Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said troops found a child and arrested 14 females members in Aiyadhiya region, located near Tal Afar.

Thirteen of the arrested members were Turkish national and a Russian one with sixteen children with them. They were arrested in Qasabet al-Ra’ie village at the outskirts of Aiyadhiya,

Speaking to Sputnik, a source said the children and women were families of the foreign IS members

A security source and eyewitness were quoted on Wednesday as saying that IS female members, most of whom were foreigners, turned in themselves to Iraqi troops. Around 1,000 foreign women from Turkey, Tajikistan, Russia, Azerbaijan and China, left Aiyadhiya along with their children.

The women were transferred to Hammam al-Alil camp, allocated for the displaced, in south of Mosul. They are under high security and are being interrogated.

Another source from the camp said IS women arrived today to the camp on board for more than fifteen buses.

On Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Yehia Rasool, spokesperson of the Joint Operations Command, said in a statement that army troops, backed by fighter jets, killed 65 militants, including 15 suicide bombers, during an operation to purge the village, located west of Aiyadhiya.

Iraqi troops were able to liberate Tal Afar on August 31. PM Haidar al-Abadi announced in a televised speech on August 20 the beginning of operations to recapture the town, which has been held by the militants since 2014, when the extremist group first emerged to proclaim its self-styled ‘caliphate’. This came after 40 days of declaring victory in Mosul, the group’s former capital, where operations lasted between October to July.

Joint troops then recaptured Aiyadhiya, located 11 KM away from Tal Afar, after invading it on August 29.